ANOTHER J&J BABY POWDER OVARIAN CANCER TRIAL

Johnson & Johnson is flying solo in their latest baby powder cancer trial underway in St. Louis City Circuit Court, in front of Judge Rex Burlison, who has refused the many attempt by J&J to dismiss, remove and simply evade another ovarian cancer trial linked to J&J’s baby powder. This time they’re standing alone, after co-defendant Imerys Talc settled claims with 22 plaintiffs right before the trial began. The US unit of French minerals company Imerys SA settled claims by women for at least $5 million, related to Imerys mined talc supplied to Johnson & Johnson for making baby powder that’s been linked to ovarian cancer in several previous trials across the country.

The question becomes, just when did J&J become aware of the many adverse events and dangers of using its baby focused Talcum Powder products that have also been used by millions of adults worldwide?

At the start of the trial, plaintiff trial attorney Mark Lanier told jurors about a study of infants who had been born dead. “They took biopsies and all of them had asbestos that had migrated from the womb across the placenta.”

Then Lanier showed the jury an internal J&J email where someone at the company recommended moving the product from the baby aisle or replacing talcum with corn starch.

Lanier has stated he’s uncovered stacks of new evidence showing J&J officials knew by the 1960s its baby powder was tainted with at least trace amounts of asbestos and hid the product’s cancer risks to protect its reputation.

Why would Johnson & Johnson be sending internal e-mails of this type, if there weren’t known risks associated with the talc products?

J&J USE OF FRONT COMPANIES AND LOBBYING GROUPS

With J&J at the helm, the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA), now the PCPC, formed a talc lobbyist group in response to the first epidemiologic studies that discovered an association between ovarian cancer and genital talc use in the early 1980s. J&J and Luzenac, now Imerys Talc, were the primary actors and contributors to the Talc Interested Party Task Force (TIPTF). J&J and Imerys coordinated all the activities of the talc lobbyist group in the District of Columbia.

The stated purpose of the TIPTF was to pool financial resources of primarily J&J and Imerys to collectively defend talc at all costs and prevent regulation of any type over the cosmetic ingredient. The talc lobbyist group hired scientists to perform biased talc safety research studies. Members of the lobbyist group edited research reports by scientists on their payroll prior to submitting them to governmental agencies. Furthermore, TIPTF members knowingly released false information about the safety of talc to the public and used political and economic influence on regulatory bodies to prevent any intervention.

PCPC coordinated the defense of talc and acted as a mouthpiece for TIPTF members, including J&J and Imerys. PCPC’s revenue is generated through a dues system based on its members’ annual sales. $76.5 billion in annual sales puts J&J in the top hundred of the highest grossing companies in the world, and the highest revenue generator in the PCPC. Consequently, the PCPC had an extremely vested interest in protecting J&J’s products and financial interests.

J&J SUPPRESSED ADVERSE FINDINGS ON TALC

According to scientific evidence, there have been studies showing a direct link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer that started emerging close to 50 years ago. How as this kept from public view? Starting in 1971, Dr. W.J. Henderson and other notable researchers in Cardiff, Wales conducted the first study that suggested an association between talc and ovarian cancer.

In 1982, the first epidemiological study on talc powder use in the female genital area emerged. This study found a 92 percent increased risk of developing ovarian cancer in women who reported genital talc use. Shortly after the study’s publication, Dr. Bruce Semple of J&J spoke with lead researcher Dr. Daniel Cramer. Dr. Cramer advised Dr. Semple that J&J needed to place a warning on its talcum powder products about ovarian cancer risks so that women could make informed decisions about their health. Since 1982, there have been more than 27 additional epidemiological studies indicating a significant link between talc and ovarian cancer.

In 1993, a U.S. National Toxicology Program published a study on the toxicity of non-asbestiform talc that determined that there was clear evidence of carcinogenic activity. Consequently. researchers concluded that talc was a carcinogen, with or without asbestos contamination. Then, in 1994, the Cancer Prevention Coalition notified J&J’s CEO that studies as far back as the 1960s “…show conclusively that the frequent use of talcum powder in the genital area poses a serious health risk of ovarian cancer.”

The coalition further indicated that 14,000 women die from ovarian cancer each year and that this type of cancer is very difficult to detect and has a low survival rate. The coalition begged the company to withdraw its talc products from the market or at least provide safety information.

Since then, the World Health Organization, the Canadian government, and various other cancer organizations have classified talc as a carcinogen.

The Ingham v. Johnson & Johnson Missouri Trial

The current case before Judge Burlison is at least the fifth ovarian cancer trial held in his court in the last two years. In previous trials, plaintiffs from across the country have been awarded substantial judgments totaling more than $300 million. One of the first talc trials resulted in a $72 million verdict for Jacqueline Fox, of Birmingham, AL which was vacated by a state appeals court last October, based on the US Supreme Court’s Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) v. Superior Court of California decision of June 2017 related to non-resident plaintiffs in state court actions.

This current case filed by Gail Ingham of O’Fallon, Mo. was removed to federal court last year by J&J, but US District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh remanded it back to Judge Burlison’s court in July.

On May 15, 2018 Burlison told parties to get ready for trial and ruled that he would not sever, transfer or stay claims, finding sufficient contacts between Johnson & Johnson in Missouri to invoke a long arm statute.

WIDELY DIFFERENT VIEWS

Johnson & Johnson has defended lawsuits alleging its baby powder caused ovarian cancer in women in the past, as several trials across the country have linked their illnesses to exposure to asbestos in the company’s talc.

The talc cases which now number close to 10,000 in state and federal courts, with claims that the company sold talc in its iconic white Johnson’s Baby Powder bottles knowing it either caused ovarian cancer or was tainted with asbestos and failed to warn consumers to protect the brand.

A J&J representative, said in an emailed statement “The talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder does not contain asbestos or cause ovarian cancer and we will continue to defend the safety of our product,”

J&J FACING OVER 9,000 SUITS

Last month, jurors in California awarded a woman who said she routinely used talc on children and herself $25.7 million over her mesothelioma diagnosis. A South Carolina jury couldn’t reach a verdict on similar claims the same week as the California ruling.

Those decisions followed a New Jersey jury’s finding in April that J&J and a unit of talc supplier Imerys SA must pay $117 million to a banker who claimed his cancer was tied to baby powder use.

J&J still faces talc lawsuits by more than 9,000 plaintiffs, primarily focused on ovarian cancer, according to a May securities filing. That number has grown from 1,200 in 2016. An unknown number of consumers claim that J&J’s talc products caused mesothelioma. See J&J Talcum Powder MDL 2738 USDC New Jersey Briefcase.

WHEN AND WHAT DID J&J KNOW ABOUT TALC DANGERS?

In opening statements, Lanier said the “big fight” in the case was whether there’s asbestos in J&J’s talc products and whether J&J knew it and hid it.

He then offered that multiple studies by universities, companies, agencies and even J&J itself found asbestos in talc, but that J&J had “manipulated the science in more ways than I can count” to obscure the facts. The company was compelled to protect its baby powder brand as its “sacred cow,” based on the millions of dollars earned every year.

The women, whose jobs range from school bus driver to executive director of a job-retraining program, come from states across the country, such as Pennsylvania, California, Arizona and New York. Six of the women have died, so their families are pressing wrongful-death claims against J&J.

When Krystal Kim, one of the women suing, learned testing by her lawyers of the Johnson’s Baby Powder she used showed it was laced with asbestos, she felt sick. “I was scared and mad at the same time,” said Kim, a 52-year-old former computer consultant now battling ovarian cancer. “It certainly wasn’t what I expected to have in my house or to be putting on my body every day.”

Kim traveled to St. Louis for the trial and she’s banking on jurors holding J&J accountable for her cancer after hearing Lanier’s evidence. “I’m hoping this jury says no more little girls should be harmed by this powder,” she said. “I’m hoping it stops here.”

The trial is expected to last another week to 10 days and we will provide updates until a verdict is returned.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The “Big Three” national drug distributors on Oct. 20 told a federal judicial panel that they support centralization of more than 60 opioid lawsuits filed against them by various cities and counties (In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, MDL Docket No. 2804, JPML).

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 24 affirmed the exclusion of general causation experts in the Mirena multidistrict litigation and a court order terminating the MDL before any trials were held (In Re: Mirena IUD Products Liability Litigation, Mirena MDL Plaintiffs v. Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Nos. 16-2890 and 16-3012, 2nd Cir., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 20875).

Last week a California state court set aside a $417 million verdict awarded in August 2017, against Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit by a woman that claimed J&J’s talc-based product, Johnson’s Baby Powder caused her ovarian cancer after years of feminine hygiene use.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maren Nelson entered a ruling that’s a further setback facing women and family members who accuse J&J of not warning consumers about the cancer risks of its talc-based products. There are now thousands of lawsuits filed against J&J over the claims that use of talc products leads to ovarian cancer, the cases are files in both state and federal venues across the country including the federal Multidistrict Litigation in J&J Talcum Powder MDL 2738 (USDC New Jersey) as well as thousands of Missouri State court cases, (see J&J Talc Cases in Missouri State Court), where plaintiffs have successfully obtained large verdicts against J&J over the last two years. A single talc verdict won in Missouri state court, was recently overturned based on the June 2017 US Supreme Court Plavix ruling, which defined a plaintiff’s residence as the jurisdictional guide to where state court cases can be filed.

There is another J&J talc related trial currently underway in front of Judge Edward Simpson, in the same LA County Court, where there plaintiff has alleged use of J&J’s talcum powder products caused her to contract Mesothelioma. This trial started October 19th after plaintiff Tina Herford’s first trial was declared a mistrial on October 6, 2017, when Ms. Herford made a statement on the witness stand related to “talc use and ovarian cancer” causing Judge Simpson to declare a mistrial and quickly move to get the new trial started within 10 days. The J&J California state court trials and others soon to follow across the country, will keep J&J defense counsel busy for the foreseeable future, as more and more of J&J’s behind the scenes manipulation of R&D, paid research papers and suppression of adverse scientific publications is now coming to light, with all this conduct being introduced as evidence in the trials.

Judge Nelson’s ruling followed the jury’s decision in August to hit J&J with the largest verdict to date in Talc litigation, awarding California resident Eva Echeverria $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages. This trial was fast-tracked due to Ms. Echeverria’s onset of stage 4 cancer and fears that she would not survive the wait for a trial set past August 2017.

Nelson reversed the jury verdict and granted J&J’s request for a new trial, ruling the August trial was underpinned by errors and insufficient evidence on both sides, culminating in excessive damages. The judge added that there also had been misconduct of the jury during the trial.

Mark Robinson, who represented the woman in her lawsuit, said he would file an appeal immediately, “We will continue to fight on behalf of all women who have been impacted by this dangerous product,” he stated.

J&J in a statement said it was pleased with the verdict, adding that it will continue to defend itself in additional trials. J&J said declarations by two jurors after the trial showed that three members of the 12-person jury who voted against finding the company liable were improperly excluded from determining damages.

J&J also stated that it faces lawsuits by 4,800 plaintiffs nationally asserting talc-related claims. Many of those cases are in California, where Echeverria’s case was the first to go to trial, and in the previously referenced Missouri court, where J&J has faced five trials, with very limited success.

The Missouri litigation led to four plaintiff verdicts against J&J in which juries issued verdicts totaling $307 million, with J&J only winning a defense verdict in a single trial.

XARELTO in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas: Will The “California Plavix” Supreme Court Ruling Affect Out of State Plaintiffs?

By Mark A. York

Mass Tort Nexus (September 26, 2017)

Bayer, which has a headquarters in Pennsylvania, recently used a June 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision on out of state plaintiffs and court jurisdictions to dismiss dozens of lawsuits from a Missouri federal court in the “Essure” birth control litigation. It remains to be seen if Bayer will use the same strategy in other jurisdictions, like Philadelphia, where the Xarelto blood thinner cases are piling up, see XARELTO Case No. 2349 in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Briefcase.

The many claimants who have brought their lawsuits in Philadelphia will have to see if pharmaceutical companies like Bayer, Johnson & Johnson and others who are facing many thousands of other claims from out-of-state plaintiffs, will rely on the June 19th U.S. Supreme Court ruling that states an out-of-state plaintiff couldn’t file suit in California, due to a lack of jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court justices ruled 8-1 in favor of Bristol Myers-Squibb after the company argued plaintiffs living outside California who alleged injury from BMS’s blood thinner Plavix, should not be able to sue the company in that state.

The Supreme Court ruled that, essentially the “all inclusive view of personal jurisdiction by non-resident plaintiffs has come to an end.” Plavix was not designed or made in California, and the company is headquartered in New York. The ruling may simply force thousands of pending cases across the country to be refiled in other venues, as plaintiff firms are not likely to simply withdraw the cases as massive losses, without having their day in one court or another.

A non-residents plaintiff can file suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, if the defendant is either incorporated in Pennsylvania, or has a principal place of business in Pennsylvania, which limits the legal options for Bayer, based on their corporate headquarters in the state.

Two of the biggest mass tort programs in the Philadelphia Complex Litigation Center docket are the Risperdal litigation, which is produced by Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary) and allegedly causes males to develop breasts, Janssen has been hit with several large multi-million dollar verdicts in Risperdal trials. The other is Xarelto, a blood-thinner made by Bayer and Johnson & Johnson that allegedly causes uncontrolled bleeding events, and the makers failed to warn of the dangers. The Xarelto MDL 2592 in US district Court ED Louisiana . see Xarelto MDL 2592 Mass Tort Nexus Briefcase, where close to twenty thousand additional Xarelto cases are pending.

Bayer will be having a much harder time using the BMS Plavix decision to dismiss non-resident plaintiffs from the Philadelphia courtroom, given it’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Plaintiffs who filed suit against Boston Scientific in a Philadelphia court over allegedly defective pelvic mesh, have agreed to have their cases removed from the Pennsylvania Court to other venues based on the June 2017 “Bristol-Myers California Plavix” U.S. Supreme Court opinion. The Plavix ruling has thrown thousands of non-resident drug and medical device state court cases across the country into turmoil, as the non-resident plaintiffs cannot continue their cases in state courts where they do not reside or the defendant companies are not corporate residents. This was based on the Supreme Court ruling that stated Bristol-Myers R&D and sales activity in the State of California related to it’s Plavix blood thinner, (see Mass Tort Nexus “Plavix” CA State Court Briefcase) was not enough of a corporate presence to subject them to California state court jurisdiction, resulting in jurisdictional issue across the country for plaintiff firms.

According to one of the lead attorneys, the parties have agreed to litigate the cases in either Massachusetts, where Boston Scientific has its principal place of business, or in Delaware, it’s state of incorporation.

Kline & Specter attorney Shanin Specter said. “An agreement was reached with Boston Scientific to have the cases heard in a courtroom other than the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, so the cases can move forward and litigate without the jurisdictional issue creating legal issues. Although Boston Scientific’s motion last month sought to remove 94 cases, Specter said only three cases had been moving forward against Boston Scientific with calls placed to Boston Scientific defense counsel Shook, Hardy & Bacon and attorney Joseph Blum seeking comment have not been returned.

Judge New Asked to Reconsider

Last month, Boston Scientific had filed a motion requesting Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Arnold New reconsider his March 2015 decision that the state court had jurisdiction over the mesh cases. New, who is the supervising judge of Philadelphia’s Complex Litigation Center, issued a one-page order saying Boston Scientific’s motion was moot.

As part of the motion, Boston Scientific had sought to have New’s 2015 ruling vacated to allow for additional arguments on the issue, and allowing defense counsel to begin pleading the removal of thousands of other non-resident plaintiff cases currently in in the court’s complex litigation docket.

Ethicon Mesh Motion for Removal

Another major defendant in over one thousand pelvic mesh mass cases , Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon, has also filed motions recently seeking to have the cases dismissed based the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. Plaintiffs, however, have requested Judge New pend any rulings on these issues, based on the Pennsylvania Superior Court has agreed to consider the matter in a case that is pending before the intermediate court on appeal.

The Supreme Court’s ruling from June 19, 2017 in Bristol-Myers vs. Superior Court of California (see US Supreme Court Denies California State Court Jurisdiction) now seen as the defining game-changing decision, for mass torts in state courts, that has promised to reshape the geography of mass tort litigation across the country. In the ruling, a majority of the Supreme Court determined that plaintiffs suing Bristol-Myers Squibb in California who were not California residents had failed to establish specific jurisdiction over the pharmaceutical giant, since there was no significant link between the claims and Bristol-Myers’ conduct in California. The ruling, according to observers, makes clear that out-of-state plaintiffs can’t sue companies in states where the defendants aren’t considered to be “at home,” or haven’t conducted business directly linked to the claimed injury.

Johnson & Johnson Files For Missouri Removals

Earlier this month, J&J filed a motion in Missouri seeking to dismiss more than 1,300 lawsuits against it over talcum powder, claiming the lawyers had engaged in “blatant forum shopping on a grand scale.” On June 19, 2017 St Louis City Court Judge Rex Burlison declared a mistrial in the fifth talcum powder cancer trial being heard there, which was the afternoon of the SCOTUS “Plavix” ruling, declaring that the opinion earlier that day prevented the trial from moving forward. The trial was reset for October 2017, and the parties are currently arguing the jurisdictional issues of resuming the trial in front of Judge Burlison, see Mistrial Declared in J&J Talc Trial Due to SCOTUS Ruling.

Boston Scientific Argument

In requesting reconsideration regarding the recent Supreme Court decisions, Boston Scientific contends that Pennsylvania state courts no longer have jurisdiction over it. Specifically, the motion said Boston Scientific is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Massachusetts, it does not have sufficient ties to Pennsylvania to render it “at home” in the state, and the plaintiffs are not Pennsylvania residents. The company further says that finding Pennsylvania has jurisdiction simply because the company complies with the state’s business registration statute violates the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution and the now precedent “California Plavix” decision, .

“It is undisputed that Boston Scientific’s principal place of business is Massachusetts while its place of incorporation is Delaware,” the motion said. “Those are the only two jurisdictions where Boston Scientific is so heavily engaged in activity as to render it ‘at home.”

State Court Removal and Refiling Across The Country

The Philadelphia Court of Common Please Complex Litigation Docket appears to be preparing for a departure of many of the thousands of product liability cases, which prior to June 19, 2017 were moving along quite well in the under the direction of Judge Arnold New. State court dockets across the country are now forced to consider the removal of many cases as well as the potential refiling of thousands of cases in the state of incorporation for the medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Why did California jurors enter a verdict in favor of a cancer stricken plaintiff last week for $417 million in the latest trial over Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) talcum powder and links to ovarian cancer?(see J&J Loses Another Talc Cancer Trial) It seems as if the largest talc cancer trial verdict to date, may have been influenced by new evidence, including an emailed photo that arrived at the start of trial, apparent payments to science industry insiders and a key J&J witness who was sanctioned and discredited for false testimony at a trial in North Carolina, according to one of plaintiffs’ counsel in the case.

The jury, in front of Judge Maren Nelson, Los Angeles Superior Court, (Eva Echeverria vs. Johnson & Johnson, Case No. BC628228), awarded Ms. Echeverria $70 million in non-economic damages and $347 million in punitive damages after finding that Johnson & Johnson failed to warn that its baby powder could cause ovarian cancer. Eva Echeverria was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, and was unable to testify at trial due to her illness.

Thousands of women have brought lawsuits making similar claims, most of which are in California, Missouri and New Jersey. Plaintiffs’ attorney Allen Smith, of The Smith Law Firm, who has tried all six of the previous trials, five of which were in Missouri. A seventh Missouri trial never went to a jury after the judge granted a mistrial, (see J&J Talc Trial Mistrial Declared After SCOTUS Ruling,) on the day of the California-Plavix state court jurisdictional opinion. The juries hearing cases linking talcum powder to cancer have awarded four prior plaintiffs’ verdicts, totaling over $300 million, with the highest previous verdict being $110 million and all were awarded in Missouri state courts.

Introduction Of Damaging Evidence Against J&J:

Competitor Warning Labels

The California jury award was tied to three new pieces of evidence that other jurors hadn’t heard before, including evidence that baby powder products made by other companies sold at Walmart and Dollar Tree had warnings on the bottles showing the risks of ovarian cancer. Plaintiffs’ lawyers found out about the labels after a client of Ted Meadows, a partner at Beasley, Allen, et al, in Montgomery, AL, one of the trial attorneys, emailed a photo of a product with a warning label to them just before the Los Angeles trial began. “That was very welcome news to us,” Meadows said. “And the way it played out during the trial, I think it was news to J&J.”

Payments To Industry Insiders

Introduction of evidence that two individuals involved in the Cosmetic Industry Review (CIR), which has deemed talcum powder to be safe, which is data J&J has relied on in prior trials, had received payments from Johnson & Johnson for speeches and other engagements. This damaging information was discovered while cross-examining the group’s former director, Alan Andersen, who was a defense witness, and he was forced to disclose the prior unknown financial relationship of the CIR and Johnson & Johnson.

Bad Science

A major blow to J&J’s defense came when a defense witness, Senior Johnson & Johnson epidemiologist, Dr. Douglas Weed, was revealed to have been sanctioned for perjury in another trial in North Carolina, for lying under oath about whether he retained notes to his expert report, which plaintiffs attorneys were able to show.

“J&J presented these unbelievable and non-credible witnesses on an issue that is very important to our case,” Smith said. “Attempts to influence witnesses and alter facts, along with the fact other companies are warning of the cancer link and have been warning for eight to 12 months now. This was new evidence that proved very compelling to the jury as well as a reflection of J&J’s willingness to manipulate the trial process in their favor”, leading many to wonder what else J&J may have done.

In a post trial statement J&J declined to address the specifics of the case, stating: “We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s baby powder. In April, the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query Editorial Board wrote, ‘The weight of evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.’ We are preparing for additional trials in the U.S. and we will continue to defend the safety of Johnson’s baby powder.”

In response, the Plaintiff team stated “The new evidence that came into the California case could play a role in the next talcum powder trial, which is set for Oct. 16 in Missouri, we certainly think it is evidence that should be presented, and we’ll make every attempt to do so,” Ted Meadows said.

Johnson & Johnson Has Thousands More Talc Trials Waiting

J&J faces thousands more federal lawsuits in the recently consolidated MDL 2738, In Re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Liability Litigation supervised by US District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in the US District Court of New Jersey, in addition, there are the ever growing number of state court cases pending in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware as well as the remaining thousands of cases in the California State Court consolidation, which are captioned Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder, Case No. JCCP4872.

Evidence of Johnson & Johnson and misconduct both inside and outside the courtroom can do nothing to further prove their continued claims of “no connection between ovarian cancer and use of J&J talcum powder products”, except provide juries with information which will continue to cause massive plaintiff verdicts to be entered across the country as more damaging evidence against J&J comes to light and is introduced at trials.

Is Missouri State Court Still a “J&J Loses Again Venue” or Will the California-Plavix Ruling Change Things?

On June 19, 2017 lawyers in a St. Louis courtroom trial, Estate of Shawn Blaes, et al vs. Johnson & JohnsonCase No. 1422-CC09326-01 over Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder, were receiving notice of an earlier US Supreme Court decision and were changing trial strategy instantly, scrambling to determine if the Supreme Court decision handed down that morning doomed their case. The ruling was from a California multi-plaintiff drug case, Bristol Myers-Plavix Litigation JCCP Case No. 4748 (San Francisco County Superior Court) where Bristol-Myers had appealed the August 29, 2016 California Supreme Court decision, when the court ruled that “foreign resident plaintiffs were able to remain parties to the Plavix litigation in California State Court” see California Court Opinion Jurisdiction of Non-Resident Plavix Plaintiffs 8.29.2016. Bristol-Myers immediately appealed to the US Supreme Court, where appeal arguments were heard on April 24, 2017 see BMSQ California Plavix SCOTUS Appeal Transcript , which left non-resident plaintiffs in state court cases across the country in limbo, pending the ruling. On June 19th the 8-1 ruling clarified the non-resident question for many plaintiffs, including the three plaintiffs in the pending trial in front of Judge Rex Burlison, who immediately declared a mistrial, but prior to his ruling the trial attorneys were scrambling to get correct information.

One attorney was still downloading the opinion to his computer as another told the judge “I’m on my cellphone right now trying to learn facts,” according to the trial transcript, Shawn Blaes v. J&J June 19th Trial Transcript of the hearing. Defense counsel aggressively asserted to Judge Burlison that the Supreme Court decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, June 19, 2017 California-Plavix SCOTUS Opinion which limited where defendants could be sued, was directly applicable to the case and had disrupted matters so thoroughly that he had to declare a mistrial.

But plaintiffs lawyers had a surprise: A company called “Pharma Tech Industries” was involved, and when W. Wylie Blair of Onder, Shelton, O’Leary & Peterson, was asked to address Bristol-Myers, he introduced the judge to Pharma Tech, a company that was “doing the packaging, labeling and distributing of talc-based body powders right here in Union, Missouri.”

Plaintiffs counsel Blair went on to tell him about letters, forms, emails, monthly checks and sales documents showing Pharma Tech’s plant in Missouri had bought raw talc from Imerys Talc America Inc., another defendant in the case, which alleged Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder caused three women to die from ovarian cancer. Pharma Tech then made products for Johnson & Johnson, and originally the talc products by Pharma Tech had a cancer warning on it, but Pharma Tech, at J&J’s direction, removed it when manufacturing, bottling and labeling its products.

Though intrigued, Burlison decided not to proceed with the trial, as two of the three plaintiffs hadn’t lived in Missouri. The judge granted Johnson & Johnson’s motion for a mistrial. Going forward, he said, would be like “trying to master a square into a round hole.”

“We do have allegations in this case that would constitute what the Bristol-Myers court refers to as relevant acts, however, we don’t — we do not have pleadings sufficient to anchor those relevant acts to a third party, that being the Pharma Tech Industries here in Missouri,” Burlison said.

The judge has reset the case for trial on Oct. 16, 2017 and permitted plaintiffs attorneys to move forward on discovery over Pharma Tech, a family-owned manufacturer of pharmaceutical powders based in Athens, Georgia. Founded in 1972, Pharma Tech has been run by the same family since 1989, which has a plant in Union, Missouri that provides talc products to Johnson& Johnson.

The Pharma Tech evidence could prove essential to the claims of more than 1,360 other plaintiffs who have cases pending in Missouri, where juries have awarded verdicts of more than $300 million. Pharma Tech has come up in plaintiffs’ motions this month to remand 20 cases back to Missouri. Johnson & Johnson removed them to federal court under Bristol-Myers just before the scheduled depositions and subpoenas on the Pharma Tech evidence. Plaintiffs’ attorneys also want the Missouri Court of Appeals to let them to add the Pharma Tech evidence to a pending appeals of the prior Missouri court verdicts.

Johnson & Johnson declined to comment on the ruling, while co-defendant, Imerys declared:

“None of the cases tried to date have alleged any conduct by Imerys in Missouri, and the vast majority of cases filed against us in St. Louis are by plaintiffs who similarly have no connection to St. Louis or Missouri,” said Imerys spokeswoman Gwen Myers. “We will look to overturn those cases that were already improperly tried in this jurisdiction and will seek to apply this ruling to those that are still pending.”

The defense bar has been emboldened by Bristol-Myers in which the Supreme Court ruled non-resident plaintiffs who sued Bristol-Myers in California had failed to establish specific jurisdiction because there wasn’t enough of a link between their claims and California, where they brought their “mass action.” Most of the 600 plaintiffs didn’t live in California, and Bristol-Myers is based in New York. The court also found that a California distributor, McKesson Corp., didn’t have enough connection to the claims.